Many -many thanks toy you Jhondra for taking the time to write such a long post to explain in detail the steps that should be taken for a successful RTH setup. I will try to put them into practice the next time I am at the field, and I have the feeling that things will be greatly improved.

Just a couple of notes:
1) I am using rudder for turning, not ailerons (but the same principles apply)
2) Indeed by "stable I mean that it wants to gradually pull out of a dive, and generally wanting to self-correct back to level straight flight. Actually, this plane is so stable that some times I just leave the TX on the bonnet of my car for a few minutes and enjoy drinking coffee while watching the plane gently circling 200 or 300 meters above my head! However, you are right that the control surfaces have rather a lot of deflection since I like my planes to be very maneuverable. I give only very slight stick deflections during the servo analysis wizard, but still it is enough to cause tight turns. I suppose I should start by mechanically reducing the throws (at the servo arm holes) in order to tame the flying characteristics, and also provide the OSD with more resolution (and hence accuracy) over the position of the control surfaces.

Many -many thanks to you Jhondra for taking the time to write such a long post to explain in detail the steps that should be taken for a successful RTH setup. I will try to put them into practice the next time I am at the field, and I have the feeling that things will be greatly improved.

My pleasure. There are about 20 hours of video of me working to make RTH very robust on my plane. Honestly, without something like Gyro/closed loop feed back, it will never be "error proof", but you can get it working pretty well, if you start with a very stable plane. FIRST.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sfakias

Just a couple of notes:
1) I am using rudder for turning, not ailerons (but the same principles apply)

Correct. Sorry, I just saw later post from you saying you use rudder...but yes, it will be roughly the same as long as you have an airframe that behaves well (with this being a scratch built, I'm assuming a lot about the robust behavior of the airframe, so I'll let you make sure that is bugged out separately).

Quote:

Originally Posted by sfakias

2) Indeed by "stable I mean that it wants to gradually pull out of a dive, and generally wanting to self-correct back to level straight flight. Actually, this plane is so stable that some times I just leave the TX on the bonnet of my car for a few minutes and enjoy drinking coffee while watching the plane gently circling 200 or 300 meters above my head! However, you are right that the control surfaces have rather a lot of deflection since I like my planes to be very maneuverable. I give only very slight stick deflections during the servo analysis wizard, but still it is enough to cause tight turns. I suppose I should start by mechanically reducing the throws (at the servo arm holes) in order to tame the flying characteristics, and also provide the OSD with more resolution (and hence accuracy) over the position of the control surfaces.

Yeah, I do too. But for FPV and RTH, maybe just try a test flight with VERY minimal throws in (either limited on your end points or better, move the throw in the servo arm holes and far out on control surface horns...make sure everything has enough control in normal flight first, and take note of servo deflections needed for nice smooth slow turns to do during servo wizard on ground). Start there and see if that works for RTH better. Also, after spending a LOT of time on this, I strongly would encourage you to consider getting the guardian. It makes most of this much simpler and can handle a LOT more situations gracefully...

Quote:

Originally Posted by sfakias

Once again, thank you very much for your excellent detailed post.

I will keep you gents updated when new results are available.

Best regards.

Good luck! Good RTH behavior is CRITICAL to being able to move to the next phase, which is worry free "bucket list" flights (distance, height, and any number of other things that would otherwise risk the plane and equipment).

So a weird thing happened today. I when to fly my new sky surfer (More info found here http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1569242), I plugged it in, and I got nothing. I had no control with my radio, my guardian wasn't working, and I had no video signal even though my video tx and ground station was powered. Has my OSD failed?

So a weird thing happened today. I when to fly my new sky surfer (More info found here http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1569242), I plugged it in, and I got nothing. I had no control with my radio, my guardian wasn't working, and I had no video signal even though my video tx and ground station was powered. Has my OSD failed?

Jon

Nice clean build. Color me jealous.

Not sure how you have power routed for VTx and OSD/Rx, but something tells me you aren't getting power to the OSD and Rx, which will still have VTx working...look to your power connections/BESC...

It's my castle BEC . I just tested it. It simply outputs the voltage of the pack and doesn't step it down out all! That means my OSD, all my servos, and my rx, were submitted to 12volts.....If the sensors are powered off the OSD then those may have received 12 volts as well. This is bad....is my stuff shot? I really didn't expect this from castle I have only had good luck with them in the past.

It's my castle BEC . I just tested it. It simply outputs the voltage of the pack and doesn't step it down out all! That means my OSD, all my servos, and my rx, were submitted to 12volts.....If the sensors are powered off the OSD then those may have received 12 volts as well. This is bad....is my stuff shot? I really didn't expect this from castle I have only had good luck with them in the past.

Jon

Jon

I run all of my sensors straight from the 3SLiPo.

The Eagle tree components can handle 12V.

But your camera may be shot if it takes 5V.

This would account for a lack of video.

The only way to know is to fire everything up (that requires 5V.) on 5V.

The only way to know is to fire everything up (that requires 5V.) on 5V.

Okay that's good news. The camera runs off of 12 volts so it should be fine. But the OSD won't initialize unless it get's signal from the Rx right? Wouldn't that also account for a lack of video? Hopefully it's only the servos and rx that have gone.
Jon

Okay that's good news. The camera runs off of 12 volts so it should be fine. But the OSD won't initialize unless it get's signal from the Rx right? Wouldn't that also account for a lack of video? Hopefully it's only the servos and rx that have gone. Ugh, so much work for this outcome, hopefully I can get it resolved soon.

Jon

Humm,

I don't think so.

Maybe you are getting some strange electrical phenomenon from the BEC.

What you might want to do is unplug the 5V. components, and fire it up.

It sounds like the only thing that you are running on 5V is the receiver...

You may want to disconnect 2 of the motor wires in case it goes into failsafe, or better yet, take the esc out of the loop for testing purposes.

It's my castle BEC . I just tested it. It simply outputs the voltage of the pack and doesn't step it down out all! That means my OSD, all my servos, and my rx, were submitted to 12volts.....If the sensors are powered off the OSD then those may have received 12 volts as well. This is bad....is my stuff shot? I really didn't expect this from castle I have only had good luck with them in the past.

Jon

hum...something tells me you are getting something crossed from your 12v camera supply onto your BEC/Rx 5V VCC...unless you've confirmed that the castle BEC pulled clear out of the whole system and checked is actually providing 12V...seems strange to me if it is...

Are you CERTAIN you aren't pushing the 12v camera voltage into the center/Red pin of the OSD from/to the VTx/Camera connection on the OSD plugs?

When I tested the BEC it was independent of the osd and the video system. If you look at the picture of the plane, I tested the BEC through the molex connector that was in the plane, with the osd and video gear not even being powered or plugged in. Does that make sense to test it that way?

And yeah my rx and tx channels are the same. The inputs and outputs check out as well. It's so weird that I didn't touch the plane and that it worked perfectly 24 hours earlier. I should be thank full that I didn't get any of these problems in the air

Thanks you guys very very much for helping me out with this, I really do appreciate all of the input.

I wonder what is in version 10.04 so new? Yesterday when I upgraded to version 10.04 with guoridan stabilization, servo motors had a sudden very little deviation. In no way I could raise them. But when I put back the old version 9.99 were set to decline back to normal.

I would teach it the full throws in servo analysis wizzard, and then adjust the settings to make it fly smoothely.

you are trying to do too much stuff that you can't control as a standard.

use the wizzard as it should be used, and then make your setting adjustments.

hi sfakias,

pls use small servo deflections during the wizzard. if you use no guardian, these deflections will be used to control rth .... and your turns will end in the "spiral of death". Rabe2002 made a nice video of this, youŽll find it on the first pages of this thread.

sorry Mike ... full servo deflections during the wizzard is only for use with the guardian (rtfm).